REBEL IN-FIGHTING
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
Washington, D.C., September 17, 1864—10 a.m.
Major-General SHERMAN: I feel great interest in the subjects of your dispatch mentioning corn and sorghum and contemplated a visit to you.
A. LINCOLN.
This short, cryptic message says more than it seems. Two days before, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman had telegraphed Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, the army’s chief of staff in Washington, D.C. Sherman had taken Atlanta and was residing in the city, making plans for his next campaign. “All well,” as he commonly put it; “troops in fine, healthy camps, and supplies coming forward finely.”
Then he added: “Governor Brown has disbanded his militia, to gather the corn and sorghum of the State. I have reason to believe that he and Stephens want to visit me, and I have sent them a hearty invitation.”
A couple of things are going on here. That Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown, an ardent champion of local defense, would—with a Yankee army of roughly 60,000 men encamped and unchallenged in northern Georgia—send his state militia home to gather crops was eye-catching.
Even more important, why would the governor of Georgia and the vice president of the Confederacy (both widely known critics of the administration in Richmond) want to meet with Sherman?
